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The wall

Salameh Bishara hasn't seen his farm in nearly
three years. His family's land lies near Beit Jala just west of
Bethlehem and south of Jerusalem.

Israeli military checkpoints prohibit him from getting to
the land on which his family produced grapes, olives, almonds and
apricots. Soon Israel's 24-foot high concrete security barrier will
seal him off from his farm, perhaps permanently.

After three
years without pruning and cultivation, Bishara suspects his farm is a
"wasteland," but his deepest agitation involves what is to come.

Any
day he expects the mail or a messenger will bring word that Israeli
authorities have declared his property "absentee land." A law allows an
Israeli court to make such a declaration and take his land — even
though it's Israeli authorities who keep him from it, even though the
land has been in his family for generations, and even though the land
is well behind the internationally recognized "green line" that
separates Israel from Palestinian territory.

"They won't let me
go to my land," says Bishara, the principal of a Lutheran school in
Beit Sahour, even though it's a stone's throw from his house. "If you
build a security barrier, that's OK," he adds with frustration at the
injustice, "but why not build it on your own land?" Bishara's story
isn't unique, which accounts for the pessimism among Palestinians
despite diplomatic advances between the Palestinian Authority and
Israel. "There are pretty words," Bishara says, but construction of the
wall continues and conditions on the ground are getting worse.